Conservation & Environment

March 26, 2012 – America' s Marine Fish Conservation Network has demanded an apology from the Recreational Fishing Alliance (RFA). The following is from a press release issued by the Marine Fish Conservation Network after the March 21 "Keep Fisherman Fishing" rally in Washington, DC. The RFA was one of many sponsors of the event, which included commercial and recreational fisherman from across the country.

 

 The RFA staged their “Keep Fishermen Fishing” rally outside Congress last week. An estimated 300 people attended, including a number of commercial and recreational fishermen.

However, on Friday a photo came to light confirming that Omega Protein was a central participant in the March 21 rally, which has left the Marine Fish Conservation Network Executive Director Matt Tinning fuming:

“We’ve long known that the Recreational Fishing Alliance does not speak for the more than 12 million recreational anglers from around our nation who love their sport and wish to ensure a prosperous fishing future. Their policy proposals and rhetoric are highly destructive to the futures of everyone who loves to fish. But today’s revelation that the Recreational Fishing Alliance teamed up with Omega Protein to convene this week’s ‘Keep Fishermen Fishing’ rally takes them to new depths. They must immediately apologize to our nation’s anglers.

“Omega Protein runs a reduction fishery that vacuums forage fish from the ocean in a way that steals fishing opportunities from anglers. Their destructive practices robs bunker from the mouths of striped bass and countless other species. Atlantic Menhaden has been called “the most important fish in the sea, and Omega Protein’s practices have reduced their numbers to just 8% of virgin spawning stock biomass. Just last year, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission recognized the scale of the threat in an historic vote which is likely to ensure catch levels are reduced. Yet Omega Protein and their allies strongly opposed this critical first step towards sustainability. It was only possible because of years of tireless work by our nation’s recreational anglers.

“For our nation’s anglers to have to learn that a group who falsely claims to represent them is teaming up with ‘public enemy number one’ is a disgrace. RFA’s contempt for the health of our recreational fisheries is an affront to everything we’ve worked so hard to achieve.

Read the full story here.

Read the press release from the Marine Fish Conservation Network here.

Analysis: The Marine Fish Conservation Network, which writes that the menhaden reduction industry “vacuums forage fish from the ocean” and “steals fishing opportunities from anglers” misrepresents both the current state of the menhaden fishery and the Keep Fisherman Fishing rally held on March 21.

While the Marine Fish Conservation Network claims that Omega Protein and the menhaden reduction industry negatively affect angling and the marine environment, this is not supported by the available scientific data. In the last stock assessment issued by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) in 2010, the ASMFC found that the menhaden fishery was not overfished. There was slight overfishing in 2008, but it was not enough to significantly threaten the health of the stock, which still managed to produce new eggs at the target level. There has also been no significant pattern of overfishing in recent years, as 2008 was the only year in the last decade where overfishing had occurred. Further, NOAA has recognized that environmental factors play a much larger role in determining the size of the menhaden stock than does commercial fishing.

The Keep Fishermen Fishing rally was a public event, held on public property at the United States Capitol.  All fishermen who support the central goals of the rally — focused on reform of the Magnuson-Stevens Act — were welcome to attend.   A number of menhaden bait and reduction fishermen chose to attend the rally. Some of them work for Omega Protein. Omega Protein was not a rally sponsor, nor did they have a central role in its organization. No one associated with Omega Protein spoke at the event.

The list of organizers was published on the rally website, and does not include Omega Protein: "Rally organizers & supporters include Recreational Fishing Alliance, Southeastern Fisheries Association, Viking Village, Lund’s Fisheries, Fishermen’s Dock, North Carolina Watermen United, Florida Keys Commercial Fishermen's Association, Southern Off Shore Fishing Association, Morro Bay Commercial Fishermen’s Association, Long Island Commercial Fishermen's Association, National Association of Charterboat Operators, Montauk Inlet Seafood, Hull’s Seafood, New York Fishing Tackle Trades Association, Panama City Boatmen’s Association, Alliance of Communities For Sustainable Fisheries, Westport Charterboat Association, Garibaldi Charters, Monkfish Defense Fund, California Wetfish Producers, Rivercenter Marine, Garden State Seafood Association, Big Game Fishing Journal, , New York Sportfishing Federation, United Boatmen, Save the Summer Flounder Fishery Fund, Atlantic Capes Seafood, West Coast Seafood Processors Association, Lower Columbia Alliance for Sustainable Fisheries, Ocean Isle Fishing Center, Tailwalker Marine, Fishing United, Raffields Fisheries, Patriot Sportfishing, the American Albacore Fishing Association, Montauk Boatmen’s & Captains Association, Maryland Saltwater Sportfishermen’s Association, Marine Trades Association of New Jersey and Viking Yachts."

March 21, 2012 – For the first time in a generation, fish populations are getting healthier – science-based management and rebuilding requirements have led to the recovery of 23 fish species since 2000, according to NOAA Fisheries. This list includes popular fish like New England sea scallop, which comprises the second most valuable commercial fishery in the country, and summer flounder, a favorite for recreational anglers and local seafood markets in the Mid-Atlantic.

And it’s all thanks to the bipartisan, 36-year-old Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the law that’s helped to bring America’s marine fish populations back from the brink of collapse.

That law, however, is under attack right now by fishing lobbying groups that have organized a rally in Washington, D.C. today.  Preserving the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) is the most effective way to keep fishermen fishing by ensuring that enough fish remain in the sea to spawn the next generation.

Read the complete story from The NRDC. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lobstermen off Maine’s mid-coast are out fishing — for lost lobster traps, buoys and other lost gear.

The Gulf of Maine Lobster Foundation is hosting a two-day recovery effort Monday and Tuesday in the waters off Harpswell, where fishermen are volunteering their time and boats to grapple for lost gear and bring it ashore to be disposed of and recycled.

Read the complete story from The Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 19, 2012 – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced $4 million in grants to help restore the Chesapeake Bay. The grants, from the EPA and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, will be awarded to local governments for road maintenance, flood plain management and water quality improvement projects.

The EPA established a pollution diet for the Bay in 2010 with a mission to reduce phosphorous, nitrogen and sediment from seeping into area waterways. Scientists say the nutrients cause algae blooms and oxygen-deprived dead zones, making it difficult for many organisms to survive.

EPA officials say the new grants will help jurisdictions stick to their diet and meet their pollution reduction goals.

Listen to the story at NPR affiliate WAMU.

Analysis: While there has been recent progress on combatting the growth of dead zones (areas of water with low amounts of dissolved oxygen) in the Chesapeake Bay, large amounts of nutrient runoff from agriculture and population growth in Chesapeake Bay watershed have made them an enduring problem. While environmental advocates have made the claim that dead zones could be reduced by increasing the menhaden population, a recent study suggesting that menhaden contribute little to improving overall water quality means that pollution and nutrient reduction efforts, like the EPA's, remain the best way to mitigate dead zone growth.

March 16, 2012 – On the eve of the "Keep Fishermen Fishing" rally in Washington, the Pew Environment Group urges Congress not to pass the flexibility bills at the center of the rally's demands.

Thirty-six years after enactment of the law that is now known as the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSA), we are turning a corner on ending overfishing (taking fish faster than they can reproduce) and rebuilding our nation’s valuable fish populations. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) reports that 23 depleted stocks have been rebuilt since 2000. In addition, it has estimated that fully rebuilt U.S. fish populations would generate $216 billion in annual sales impacts and support 2.5 million full- and part-time U.S. jobs in commercial and recreational fisheries.

So-called flexibility bills—including H.R. 1646, the “American Angler Preservation Act”; H.R. 3061, the “Flexibility and Access in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act of 2011”; and S. 632, the “Flexibility in Rebuilding American Fisheries Act of 2011”—would undermine the bipartisan conservation provisions of the MSA by creating loopholes that could extend timelines indefinitely for rebuilding depleted fish populations. Doing so would raise fishing pressure on depleted populations while increasing the difficulty and cost of their recovery. These bills also would allow fishery managers to put short-term gains for a few ahead of the nation’s investment in healthy fish populations, which provide income and jobs for many.

Read the complete release from PEW Environment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 25, 2012 – Five years ago, Bruce Franklin's important book, "The Most Important Fish in the Sea" hit the shelves of bookstores. For the first time, many people understood the importance of one the ocean's smallest fish, the menhaden, to the overall cycle of life in the world's oceans.

Without "pogies" (the Tar Heel nickname for menhaden), there'd be fewer and much smaller striped bass, dolphin, yellowfin and bluefin tuna, wahoo, king and Spanish mackerel, flounder, red drum, bluefish and spotted seatrout. If the ocean were populated by burger-eating game fishes, pogies would be the most-popular menu item at McMenhaden (with 100 billion gazillion sold). Waters would be more polluted as well.

Franklin pointed out the tragic history of pogies, most importantly noting how menhaden have been netted since pre-history days in America, through the country's pioneer days (also by Native Americans), during the Revolutionary War and into the modern era. But from the 1700s through the 20th century, netting efforts were crude, mainly by individuals wielding make-shift cast nets. But with the arrival of industrial fishing (spotter airplanes and sonar) co-joined with mechanized purse-seine fishing by huge "reduction" ships, menhaden numbers have dropped precipitously.

North Carolina once had two major menhaden reduction factories and fleets of ships at Oak Island and Morehead City. About three or four years ago, Jules Wheatley converted his pogie factory at Beaufort into condominiums (Southport's factory closed in the 1970s). Wheatley had one ship left at that point; the other had been sunk at an artificial reef.

Nonetheless, when a Southport lawyer and N.C. House representative, Bonner Stiller, tried to get a piece of legislation passed that would keep all pogie boats out of Brunswick County nearshore waters, Wheatley testified against the proposed bill in Raleigh. Before the next netting season, he dropped out of the menhaden business.

Read the full article here.

Analysis:

 While the article correctly notes that the menhaden stock is not currently considered to be overfished by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), it also makes claims about the health of the resource not supported by recent stock assessments.

Both the article and the book it mentions, H. Bruce Franklin's The Most Important Fish in the Sea, claim that menhaden are currently being overexploited by the reduction fishery. Franklin goes as far as saying that the reduction industry is "massacring the juvenile fish before they can reach maturity and spawn to make more fish" (The Most Important Fish in the Sea, pg. 135).

What the article and Franklin's book fail to mention is that, according to several of the most recent ASMFC stock assessments, menhaden are not considered to be overfished, and there has been no significant pattern of overfishing over the last decade. Egg production in the stock is at its target level, and fishing has only exceeded the mortality threshold once in the last ten years. The article, and Franklin's book, also ignore the evidence that there is a historically poor correlation between fishing levels and menhaden recruitment, and, as explained by NOAA, "environmental factors may be the defining factor in the production of good year classes [of menhaden]."

The article also makes the commonly cited claim that menhaden help clean up the water. In The Most Important Fish in the Sea, Franklin writes, "the health of our East Coast bays and estuaries…depends on these small fish" (The Most Important Fish in the Sea, pg. 21). Similarly, the article writes that without menhaden, "waters would be more polluted." However, menhaden's role as filter feeders is one that is in dispute, as several scientific studies have concluded that their impact on overall water quality is negligible.

PORTLAND, Maine—Conservationists have won a round in a legal battle trying to force fishery regulators to offer more protection for declining populations of river herring.

A federal judge in Washington ruled Friday that that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hasn't done enough to protect river herring — a collective term referring to alewives, blueback herring, American shad and hickory shad — from commercial trawlers that catch Atlantic herring in the ocean.

The ruling will force regulators to take steps to give the fish added protections, said Roger Fleming, a Maine-based lawyer with Earthjustice who represented a recreational fisherman, a charter boat captain and the Ocean River Institute in the lawsuit, which was filed in 2011.

Read the complete story by The AP at The Boston Globe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

WASHINGTON, March 12, 2012 – The Pew Environment Group commended Sens. John Kerry (D-MA), Olympia J. Snowe (R-ME), John D. Rockefeller (D-WV), Scott Brown (R-MA), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) today for introducing the Fisheries Investment and Regulatory Relief Act (FIRRA).

A companion bill is expected in the House by Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Frank Guinta (R-NH). This bipartisan legislation would ensure that key programs critical to sustainably managing ocean fish populations, and the fishermen and communities that depend on them, would receive increased and sustained funding.

The bill would provide approximately $100 million annually for much-needed scientific research, monitoring, data collection, and assistance to fishermen and coastal communities by redirecting a portion of existing import duties on fish and fish products to support key programs.

Read the complete story from The Wall Street Journal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOAA re-launched the FishWatch website at the International Seafood Show in Boston today. The goal of FishWatch is to provide easy-to-understand science-based facts to help consumers make smart sustainable seafood choices.

According to NOAA, FishWatch provides easy-to-understand science-based facts to help consumers make smart sustainable seafood choices.

See the website.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maritime Gloucester will be the site of a series of lectures on “Stellwagen at Twenty” to showcase the natural, maritime and human history of the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary.

View the schedule of planned lectures.